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posted by FatPhil on Friday December 02 2016, @12:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the always-developing dept.

Although Sroor says she does not always find encouragement for her technological pursuits in Gaza, there is one place where she feels at home: A seed accelerator and workspace in Gaza City's bustling al-Rimal neighbourhood called Gaza Sky Geeks.

"The people here are like my second family," Sroor told Al Jazeera inside the loft-like space, amid the buzz of dozens of Palestinian designers, developers and freelancers who work here daily.

The organisation, founded in 2011 with a $900,000 grant from Google, provides mentorship and support to startups in Gaza to help to grow the territory's nascent tech industry.

Since 2013, four companies that went through the Gaza Sky Geeks "incubation" process secured investments ranging from $30,000 to $65,000, the accelerator's social media coordinator, Dalia Shurrab, told Al Jazeera.

Gaza Sky Geeks is now focusing on bringing more girls and women into the fold. Currently, about half of the founders of the startup companies that Gaza Sky Geeks mentors are women, said Rana Alqrenawi, who is in charge of the organisation's female-centred programmes. The goal is to get to 80 percent, she said, in an effort to overcompensate for the current gender gap in the tech world.

They shall know Code, and Code shall set them free.


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  • (Score: 2) by RedGreen on Friday December 02 2016, @06:33PM

    by RedGreen (888) on Friday December 02 2016, @06:33PM (#436093)

    "My working definition of "Palestinian":"

    Mine is a Jordanian whose country has a majority of them making up its population an inconvenient truth in the Palestinian need a home country BS they pull off against Israel.

    --
    "I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday December 02 2016, @07:14PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Friday December 02 2016, @07:14PM (#436113)

    Your definition is factually incorrect:
    1. Gazans (such as the women featured in the article) were never Jordanians.
    2. Some used to live in what is now Israel, but were expelled by force in the late 1940's during the fighting that led to the creation of Israel.

    As for any claims about "home country BS", what exactly would you have the non-Israeli residents of the West Bank and Gaza do? The options that are currently not open to them:
    * They can't become Israeli citizens - Israel won't let them, mostly because if they did Jews might not be a majority in Israel and thus lose control of the government.
    * They can't leave for Jordan or Egypt or other Arab countries due to diplomatic agreements between Egypt, Jordan, and Israel to meet Israel's demands of no border crossings between the West Bank and Gaza and any Arab state.
    * They can't stay where they are either, because Israel is continuously taking their land by force, and the ruling party of Israel has made it clear that they intend to have it all eventually.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday December 02 2016, @07:21PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Friday December 02 2016, @07:21PM (#436119)

      And all this could've been avoided if they had just agreed to either a One-State or Two-State Solution back in the day.

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by RedGreen on Friday December 02 2016, @08:17PM

      by RedGreen (888) on Friday December 02 2016, @08:17PM (#436179)

      "1. Gazans (such as the women featured in the article) were never Jordanians."

      Crook of shit where the hell do think they were before Israel existed and even after? The land which became Israel a tiny little slip of a piece was Jordan before and the pieces you spout on about now were gained as a result of the Arabs attacking Israel and them winning yet again the battles that seized it from Jordan. That is what happens in conquest to the victor go the spoils. I still have yet to figure out what the Jews have done to earn them this never ending persecution and worse by the world.

      --
      "I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
      • (Score: 2) by RedGreen on Friday December 02 2016, @08:34PM

        by RedGreen (888) on Friday December 02 2016, @08:34PM (#436192)

        Actually the Gaza piece came from Egypt its the West Bank came from Jordan. All artificial lines drawn on a map by the British at the time anyways. Are not the Arabs supposed to be brothers except when it comes to helping out their fellow brothers of course when you can get to kill a few Jews for your cause.

        --
        "I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @08:39PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @08:39PM (#436194)

          When I read your posts, it makes me feel like I am stoned because your sentences do not word right.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2016, @08:08AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2016, @08:08AM (#436453)

            it makes me feel like I am stoned

            Please do not use this turn of phrase when the topic is the middle east.

      • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday December 03 2016, @06:59PM

        by Thexalon (636) on Saturday December 03 2016, @06:59PM (#436587)

        Crook of shit where the hell do think they were before Israel existed and even after?

        Thank you for correcting yourself further down. Gaza was never part of Jordan, it was part of Egypt.

        As for what Jews have done to be attacked like they have been: In Europe, absolutely nothing (and, for the record, many members of my grandfather's family weren't able to get away).

        In what is now Israel, though, the answer is (1) illegally immigrated to the area, (2) form paramilitary and terrorist organizations, the biggest one being Haganah, (3) and after successfully using those organizations to revolt against British rule, they turned their weapons on the Arabs living in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine, killing thousands and eventually managing to take about 60% of the land allocated to the Arabs by the UN Security Council, driving off and robbing the civilian population of those areas in the process. The idea that the Jewish leaders just wanted peaceful coexistence is not born up by their behavior either in 1948 or since.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.